– “In sunny old Melbourne town a wealthy man procured the services of a prostitute. The prostitute became pregnant and had a baby. The wealthy man and the prostitute had an informal arrangement where he paid her $100 a week child support.

Then he became less wealthy, and decided he didn’t want to keep paying.

– “One of the depressingly tired memes of elite level athletic competition is that almost every time a Black woman rises to become the best at her sport, she is either dissed, suspected of cheating or has her gender identity questioned.”

– “Is it just that they aren’t interested? Do they not have time what with all the sports and drinking and porn? Maybe they don’t feel up to handling tough subjects, or perhaps the conversational style is offputting to them?”

– “Because, despite the fact that I’ve been doing this blogging thing for a long time, I forget – seriously, I do! – that there are readers out there so crippled by their own moral bankruptcy that they are not able to extrapolate to such a conclusion.”

– “Germaine Greer has written a lot of intelligent, genuinely radical and helpful work, but that does not give her a pass to perpetuate hateful stereotypes of trans women, reinforce cissexist values and deny trans people’s identities and experiences, and I think it’s important that we counteract this rubbish whenever she’s given a platform – as a feminist – to spout it.”

– “I would really like to hear from men on this. Can you see what I’m saying? Can you think of good ways to make the point without demonising guys who are, after all, just doing what everyone else does and have probably never even considered that there might be unintended consequences? Surely you blokes can help a little? Would any of you ever consider responding to other guys saying this stuff? Would women around you doing it help, or make it harder?”

5 Responses

Renee has a powerful piece called “Thomas Jefferson: The Face of a Rapist” posted at both Womanist Musings and Feministe (warning; the Feministe thread is stuffed with a staggering amount of rape-apologism, mainly by scared white people).

The last piece really bothers me for some reason. I think it’s the classist assumption that everyone, everywhere, has access to this 24 hour information stream and libraries full of the right kind of books. Or, for that matter, the time to sit and read and the education to contextualize and process that reading. I’m not saying that these problems release a person from an obligation to educate herself or to examine her own privilege; I’m not saying any of this in defense of racist speech and actions. But “go get on the internet/get to the library” as if everyone has the spare cash and leisure time just rubs me the wrong way, somehow.

I do see your point, although the quote that I chose to highlight probably doesn’t do justice to Renee’s post in full.

I was thinking specifically of internet apologists who very obviously have plenty of access to the necessary information and time to absorb it, but they’re very far from everybody out there who says racist stuff, they’re just the ones who use the most annoying excuses.